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Dry Indigenous community ‘months’ from opening tavern to combat home-brew

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Mornington Shire Council Councillor David Barnes recently spoke to the ABC, hopeful that Council was “months” away from having a community tavern re-opened to serve legally-produced alcohol at specific times in restricted quantities.

He said the alcohol prohibition had had its place, but that dangerous amounts of poorly home-brewed alcohol were being consumed on the island, located in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

“Recently we undertook some community consultation here … where we asked people how they felt about the prohibition,” Cr Barnes said.

“A large percentage of people were in favour of re-introducing some form of controlled alcohol as opposed to continuing down the path of prohibition.

“Prohibition, unfortunately, all of the intentions are good, as a philosophy it sounds workable, but as we’ve seen in history and as we’ve seen here on Mornington Island … unfortunately it doesn’t do what it’s meant to do.

Read the original full story online at the ABC.